Curated OER
The Long and Short of It: Summarizing Important Details
Students practice their summarizing skills while listening to a brief biography of Amelia Earhart. Students take notes while the teacher reads the article and write a paragraph that summarizes the important events from Amelia Earhart's...
Curated OER
Organizing One’s Thoughts
Students take a closer look at the organization of written pieces. In this writing skills instructional activity, students examine transitions, repetition, parallelism, and other organizational patterns in writing.
Curated OER
What is Going On?
Young scholars summarize a fiction text. After reviewing the correct way to read in order to glean important information for summary, students independently read a nonfiction article. They write a summary paragraph using the process...
Curated OER
Staying in Phoenix
Read to learn! Here is a one-page informational passage about inhabitants of Phoenix, Arizona. Learners will read to make logical inferences and determine the central idea or theme. Prompts ask the class to identify the main idea and...
Curated OER
Idea-Noun Definition: Source Searching
A great idea for showing language arts pupils the universality of themes, even in the real world! Have class members choose an idea-noun (peace, justice, war, love, etc.) at the beginning of the year or semester. They complete weekly...
Baruch College Writing Center
Summarizing, Paraphrasing, and Quoting Workshop
What's the difference between summarizing and paraphrasing? Show class members how to find the main ideas from informational text and condense it, restate it, or quote it directly with a series of educational activities based on two...
Scholastic
The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere
Practice sequencing events using Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's narrative poem about the famous revolutionary hero. Learners read Revere's own account of the event, and compare/contrast the two texts using a t-chart. Finally, they imagine...
Curated OER
The Importance Setting and Mood in Fiction
Seventh graders examine the setting in pieces of fiction. In this story analysis lesson, 7th graders investigate the setting in fictional stories and the importance it has. Students discover new vocabulary terms applying to storytelling.
Curated OER
Ready, Set, Summarize
Students summarize nonfiction text. After reviewing the correct way to read in order to summarize, students independently read a nonfiction article. They write a summary paragraph using the three step-process outlined by the instructor...
Curated OER
Short and Sweet
Students summarize nonfiction text. After reviewing the process for reading in order to summarize, students independently read a nonfiction article. They write a summary paragraph using the checklist outlined by the instructor during...
Curated OER
Story Pyramid And Comparison
Students investigate the details of a chosen story of literature. They use a pyramid graphic organizer to record information. The information is used to write a summary of the story. Students use a rubric while writing the summary to...
Curated OER
Get to the Point!
Students summarize a selected piece of text nonfiction text. After reviewing the correct way to highlight important information, students read a nonfiction article. They write a summary paragraph using the five step process outlined by...
Curated OER
Madagascar-Simply Summarized
Young scholars summarize a selected piece of text nonfiction text. After reviewing the correct way to read silently, students read a nonfiction article. They write a summary paragraph using the four step process outlined by the...
Curated OER
Paraphrasing and Summarizing
Read an article about the migration of our ancestors and write a paragraph. Pupils paraphrase and summarize to restate the information found in a nonfiction text. They write a shortened version of the reading to demonstrate the...
Curated OER
Who Invented English Anyway?
In these English lesson plans, students use video, the Internet and non-fiction essays to research the history of the English language. They write a short research paper and design a PowerPoint presentation showcasing their findings.
Curated OER
Animal Reports (Lesson 6 - Use of Information
Fourth graders use the computer catalog to find and select a nonfiction book to gather bibliographic information on an animal they have previously selected. They write the information on a note card.
Curated OER
Just Get to the Good Part
Young scholars summarize nonfiction text. After reviewing the steps for summarization, students independently read a nonfiction article. They write a summary paragraph using the six-step process outlined by the instructor during guided...
Curated OER
Summarize Successfully
Students summarize nonfiction text. After reviewing the process for reading in order to summarize, students independently read a nonfiction article. They write a summary paragraph using the graphic organizer outlined by the instructor...
Curated OER
I'm Thankful I Can Summarize
Students summarize a selected piece od nonfiction text. After reviewing the correct way to read silently, students read a nonfiction article concerning Thanksgiving. They write a summary paragraph using the five step process outlined by...
Curated OER
Mapping Out Summarization
Students summarize a selected piece of text using a a six step process. After reviewing the correct way to read silently, students read a selected piece of nonfiction text. They write a summary paragraph using the six step process...
Curated OER
Summarization
Students summarize a selected piece of text using the five Ws. After reviewing the correct way to read silently, students read a selected piece of nonfiction text. They write a summary paragraph using a process outlined by the instructor.
Curated OER
Main Idea in Informational Text
Readers identify main ideas and supporting details using informational texts. In this literacy activity, they make predictions and read the text to find the main ideas. They use a table diagram to define the main idea and supporting...
Curated OER
Pre-writing activities for improving students' connections to literature
Learners, while reading a novel together in class, jot in their journals any connections to their own lives they can make between the text and self, text to text or text to the world. Various themes are connected to open more doors to...
Curated OER
The Land and the Water
Third graders read "The Land and the Water," a fictional short story and an article about John F. Kennedy, Jr. and compare and contrast fictional tragedy to a non-fiction tragedy. They fill out a Venn diagram and write an essay using...